1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a submerged processing device for a photosensitive material which is mounted such that a processing chamber is set on a conveying path along which a photosensitive material is conveyed in a liquid (solution) within a processing tank.
2. Description of the Related Art
Photosensitive material processing devices (e.g., automatic developing devices such as film processors, printer processors, and the like) which develop photosensitive materials (e.g., films and color papers) are generally used. Such a photosensitive material processing device has a processing tank containing a developing liquid, a processing tank containing a bleaching and fixing liquid, and a processing tank containing a washing and stabilizing processing liquid. Developing processing is carried out by an exposed photosensitive material being immersed in the developing liquid, the bleaching and fixing liquid, and the washing and stabilizing processing liquid while being conveyed.
Among conventional photosensitive material processing devices, those provided with a submerged conveying structure have been proposed (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2002-55422). In this photosensitive material processing device provided with a submerged conveying structure, a plurality of processing chambers are provided in the washing tank and the like. The processing chambers are partitioned in order to prevent liquid from leaking from a previous bath into a next bath, by a submerged seal formed by rollers or a blade or the like. The photosensitive material is conveyed so as to successively pass through the respective processing chambers, and contacts the processing liquids (processing solutions) in the respective processing chambers so as to be processed.
In a conventional photosensitive material processing device such as that described above, conveying rollers must be disposed at positions immediately before and immediately after the respective submerged seals between the plural processing chambers. Therefore, when looking at the overall conveying path, there are many conveying rollers, the conveying path is long, and it is difficult to make processing of the photosensitive material more rapid.
When there is a large number of conveying rollers, the number of parts increases correspondingly, and the manufacturing cost of the processing device increases.
In addition, in a processing tank which is made large in order to set therein a long conveying path having many conveying rollers, the efficiency of stirring the processing liquid which is stored therein is poor. Therefore, the processing liquid must be stirred by using a relatively large stirring pump.
Moreover, in the conventional submerged seal structure utilizing blades which partition the respective processing chambers, when a photosensitive material having a relatively strong curl passes by the blade, problems arise in that the blade is pushed up and a large amount of liquid leaks from the previous bath into the next bath, and in that the squeezing performance is poor.